Croft turned to say something to me, but before the words had time to leave his mouth a dull, muffled thud seemed to shake the whole ship. It was as if someone had struck a blow with a great hammer, away down in the deepest and darkest part of the hold. The next moment the music ceased, and I saw a light in one of the port-holes flicker out into nothingness. There followed the sharp, rending crash of breaking wood-work, a roar like distant thunder, a heavy plump on deck, and a deep-throated animal cry of triumph. "My God!" I cried. "It's one of those gorillas! Row, man! . . . _Row!_" We must have been some thirty to forty yards from the ship's side, but in the pandemonium which followed it seemed as inaccessible as if we had been that many miles away. Everything happened so quickly. Everything was so indeterminate and phantomlike in the dusk. I heard Molly and Captain Morgan give a shout of dismay and terror and saw them turn their heads swiftly in the direction of the hatch. A second later they were running for their lives in the opposite direction. "Jump!" I shouted at the top of my voice. "Molly! Jump!" Whether the poor distracted child heard me I do not know, but she certainly took no heed. As she and the Captain disappeared round the other side of the ship there was a sudden and uncanny silence, broken presently by another blood-curdling roar from the gorilla. I stood up in the rocking boat, shouted again, raised my revolver in the air, and fired into the starlit sky. "Molly!" I cried, in anguish of soul. She heard this time--thank God!--for there was an immediate answering long-drawn cry of: "Dad-dee!" from the bows. We rowed quickly in that direction and saw a huddled shape drop from the rigging and run along the deck like the shadow of a little old man. I fired, missed the brute, and heard a sudden scream of terror from Molly as it rushed on all fours towards her. "_Jump!_" I bellowed. Another cry from the bows, the sudden appearance of a slight, girlish figure on the deck rail, a splash, a bump as our canoe struck the ship's side--and Molly was saved! With my own hands, I hauled her in--surely the most precious burden that a man ever landed from the dark, mysterious sea. "Daddy!" she wept, as she clung to me in her dripping clothes. "Oh! I am glad you were here!" And then, with a swift dismissal of all thought of her own plight: "Where's Captain Morgan?" Without waiting for a reply, she raised her hands, cup-shaped, to her mouth. "Captain Morgan!" she called. . . . "Here we are!" No answer. But as we strained our ears for some sound of life on the dark and silent vessel which loomed above us, we heard a thud and the muffled curse of a man in difficulties. Then something hard and metallic struck the mast and fell to the deck with a crash. Thrusting the canoe away from the ship's side, I shouted again: "Jump, man!"